Auto Vehicle-to-Vehicle Comms Viewed as Life Saver

Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications technology received a big vote of confidence this past week, when Consumer Reports came out in support of it.

For many, the term V2V may elicit little more than a puzzled scratch of the head, but the magazine's support is one more sign that, ready or not, all of us are going to be hearing more about the nascent technology in the near future.

"We believe there are potential safety benefits to a system like this," Liza Barth of Consumer Reports told us. "And that makes it worth pursuing."

In a vehicle-to-vehicle scenario, cars and trucks would "talk" to each othervia a short-range 5.9GHz frequency band.(Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

Consumer Reports isn't the only organization that thinks it's worth pursuing. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which recently hosted a Connected Vehicle Safety Pilot Program event, has said V2V will save more lives than seat belts, air bags, and electronic stability control combined. According to the NHTSA's figures, the technology could eliminate about 80 percent of the 32,000 fatalities that occur on American highways every year.

V2V would use onboard dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) transceiver boards, which are only a little bit larger than a credit card. Operating in the 5.9GHz frequency band, the boards would communicate with other vehicles, as well as traffic lights, stop signs, municipalities, government agencies, and traffic control centers.

The big question, of course, is how such technology would enable the country to save more than 25,000 lives per year. The NHTSA and Consumer Reports say the technology would help in a number of ways. An "intersection assist" feature would alert drivers if a car is about to blow a red light or stop sign. A "left turn assist" feature would let drivers know if there's enough time to turn left into oncoming traffic. Other features would include forward collision warnings, do-not-pass warnings, lane-change warnings, and blind spot warnings.

I had been thinking of a visual system to rate drivers ability. A car mounted paint ball gun for those who follow too close or cut me off, straddle lanes etc. Color coded or just positional placement. A car with his back end covered in paint would tell police and other drivers what kind of driver he is. A V2V would let me verbally communicate to him his latest sudden lane change was not a safe move and perhaps should plan ahead his route and lane placement. DashCam technology should be intergated into new cars too.

Good question, Chaschas. In the long run, I believe the plan is to have this technology work with such features as adaptive cruise control and collision avoidance. Ultimately, the plan would be to have the vehicle take over the braking for you.

Two of the most enthusiastic promoters of this technology are the Consumers Union and the Center for Automotive Research, neither of which are selling any technologies. Both have studied this and have predicted an 80% reduction in fatalities.

Notice that the first things mentioned are the technologies that will be sold to implement this new gimmick. That tells me that those most enthusiasticly promoting it are the ones with a product to sell. Which, if you can get a law passed that all must purchase your product, you will get rich.

The instant problem will be in product liability, meaning that now many fools will presume that part of their driving task is no longer their responsibility, and they will drive, and sue, accordingly. I would not want to be the legally responsible producer of such equipment. There will certainly be a lot of lawsuits when fools start buying these systems. A system that provides the driver with sensed information about other vehicles would be a much better idea. This could include radar to track path and rate of closure, thus providing a warning to take corrective, or evasive, action.

But the very worst problem will come from the same direction as those nasty computer viruses come from: false information, such as reporting that the car ahead is going slower than it really is, or that it is stopping. And certainly the communications will include a vehicle identity, and probably driver identity, code, so that it will be a trivial matter to send out traffic citations for any percieved violation, rather real or not. And in that area, consider the really easy possibility of "vehicle identity theft", where one would be given citations earned by others.

The reality is that V2V communications would be a theoretical benefit primarily to those who should not be driving at all because they don't pay attention tom their surroundings. It would indeed be a large step toward the implementation of "utopia", where Big Brother is constantly monitoring our every action, so as to make sure that we never do anything "out of line", or anything different from all others.

Probably the one idea that is worse than this would be an in-vehicle booze dispenser. I have seen one of those and I do NOT recommend them.

I think V2V is very likley going to happen, HowieD231, and I think that the automatic summons is also likely to follow, just as you predict. If there's money in it, local municipalities will figure out a way to get their hands on it.

It will be very pointless to use V2V comm technology if its simple anotherway to cut down on human error. Human drivers will always be faulty whether you are naturally a good planner or you are not.

V2V communication research has been going on for over a decade and the technology can easly intergrate with currect navigation systems but that does not stop accidents happening and it will be a poor model to use the technology on.

Now that driverless cars are nearly into production , then so is the V2V Comm technology and its part of the driverless system design. The technology does the planning and where posible the reaction but the later will rarely happen unless there is a systems design error.

The only planning you will do then is to tell the Car your destination , either by voice or touch screen device like your ipad...i guess more intelligent pads by then.

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